Any Calabi–Yau threefold X with infinite fundamental group admits an ´etale Galois covering either by an abelian threefold or by the product of a K3 surface and an elliptic curve. We call X of type A in the former case and of type K in the latter case. In this paper, we provide the full classification of Calabi–Yau threefolds of type K, based on Oguiso and Sakurai’s work [24]. Together with a refinement of their result on Calabi–Yau threefolds of type A, we finally complete the classification of Calabi–Yau threefolds with infinite fundamental group.

We study chiral algebras associated with Argyres-Douglas theories engineered from M5 brane. For the theory engineered using 6d (2,0) type J theory on a sphere with a single irregular singularity (without mass parameter), its chiral algebra is the minimal model of W algebra of J type. For the theory engineered using an irregular singularity and a regular full singularity, its chiral algebra is the affine Kac-Moody algebra of J type. We can obtain the Schur index of these theories by computing the vacua character of the corresponding chiral algebra.

In this note we propose a generalization of heterotic/F-theory duality. We introduce a set of non-compact building blocks which we glue together to reach compact examples of generalized duality pairs. The F-theory building blocks consist of non-compact elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfolds which also admit a K3 fibration. The compact elliptic model obtained by gluing need not have a globally defined K3 fibration. By replacing the K3 fiber of each F-theory building block with a T2, we reach building blocks in a heterotic dual vacuum which includes a position dependent dilaton and three-form flux. These building blocks are glued together to reach a heterotic flux background. We argue that in these vacua, the gauge fields of the heterotic string become localized, and remain dynamical even when gravity decouples. This enables a heterotic dual for the hyperflux GUT breaking mechanism which has recently figured prominently in F-theory GUT models. We illustrate our general proposal with some explicit examples.

In this article we describe Hecke operators on the differential algebra of geometric quasi-modular forms. As an application for each natural number d we construct a vector field in six dimensions which determines uniquely the polynomial relations between the Eisenstein series of weight 2, 4 and 6 and their transformation under multiplication of the argument by d, and in particular, it determines uniquely the modular curve of degree d isogenies between elliptic curves.

The absorption rate of low-energy, or soft, electromagnetic radiation by spherically symmetric black holes in arbitrary dimensions is shown to be fixed by conservation of energy and large gauge transformations. We interpret this result as the explicit realization of the Hawking-Perry-Strominger Ward identity for large gauge transformations in the background of a non-evaporating black hole. Along the way we rederive and extend previous analytic results regarding the absorption rate for the minimal scalar and the photon.